Microsoft’s Azure Is Beginning to Close the Gap With Amazon’s Cloud Service
January 25, 2015
Grazed from NationalGazette. Author: Editorial Staff.
Last year software program maker K2.com stopped relying on Amazon.com (AMZN) for its cloud services and turned to Microsoft (MSFT) instead. K2 Chief Executive Officer Adriaan van Wyk says he’s satisfied with the choice—most of the time. The developer tools of Microsoft’s Azure cloud service are superior, he says, and he likes its customized customer service.
However occasionally Azure is slow, and on Nov. 18 it suffered a international outage that lasted several hours. As insurance coverage, Van Wyk has moved five % of his business enterprise back to Amazon Internet Services. “We still like Microsoft,” he says. “At the similar time, it’s been a bit bumpy. The 5 % makes certain if we have to move back to AWS we can do it rapidly.”…
Van Wyk’s divided loyalties underscore the challenges Microsoft faces as it tries to wrest marketplace share from business leader and crosstown competitor Amazon. Venture capitalist John Connors has dubbed the rivalry “The Battle in Seattle.” Synergy Research Group puts Amazon’s share of the $14.five billion worldwide industry for cloud infrastructure solutions at 27 percent as of this year’s third quarter, down slightly from 28 percent the year ahead of, when Azure’s has climbed three percentage points to ten %. “It’s clearly a two-horse race now, whereas two years ago it was probably extra of a one-horse race,” says Scott Guthrie, who leads Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise division…
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